May 19, 2006

Is There A Double Standard?

I note with great interest that there seems to be a cadre of people who have made it their life's work to uncover and expose every possible flaw in Apple's Aperture. It appears that no stone will be left unturned in this quest. The ArsTechincas of the world have figured out that it's easier to build an audience with negative reviews and the masses seem to think every $300 they spend should make them healthy, wealthy and wise.

And on another front, I noticed that Adobe quietly updated Photoshop CS 2 this week. Now remember, that we're working with version 1.1.1 of Aperture and version 9.01 of Photoshop, yet look at all the things that Adobe had to fix in its latest update…after nine versions, you'd certainly expect something closer to perfection than this wouldn't you?
After the update…

Photoshop no longer hangs for several seconds when using painting tools with quick strokes.
A runtime error that could appear when mousing over a high-res document with the Brush tool has been fixed.
Documents containing a large number of text layers now open more quickly.
Problems related to palettes (slow redraw, palettes go white, possible crash) have been addressed.
TIFF files from certain scanners can now be opened correctly.
After editing an image in Photoshop CS2 via the TouchUp tool in Adobe Acrobat software, the image no longer gets repositioned.
XMP metadata from AI and PDF files is now retained in Photoshop.
Slow performance when toggling layer visibility has been fixed.
Info palette numbers are now displayed and updated when moving a curve point in Curves via the cursor keys.
Problems opening certain TIFF and PSB files greater than 2GB have been resolved.
The Merge to HDR command now functions properly when using high-ASCII characters in user login.

Can you imagine the outcry if Aperture waited that long to fix that many problems? And we're talking about the difference between a version one and a version nine application to boot!

When I look back at the crying and whining over Aperture's perceived failure to accomplish this or that task, and then I look at how the digital photo community gives Adobe a virtual free pass and I have to wonder, why?

Is it just that Apple is so arrogant that people enjoy attacking them? Is it that Adobe's PR machine is simply better at controlling the media? Is it that the Adobe shills are greater in number and therefore more able to quiet dissent? Is it Apple's unreasonable additiction to secrecy? Or is it a combination of all these?
If you have an opinion, send me an email. I'd love to understand this better.